Cougars hammer Trojans in home victory

Friday

Dec 29, 2017 at 12:02 AMDec 29, 2017 at 12:02 AM

The spurt the sixth-ranked Columbia College men’s basketball team finds itself on boils down to one phrase: buy in.

Specifically, buying into coach Bob Burchard’s inside-out offensive focus. Players weren’t all in on the philosophy at first, but according to senior forward Nathan Biggs, Columbia College’s setback this month at William Woods made the Cougars believers.

“I mean, we all just kind of bought into the inside-out mentality. As a team, we try to attack as much as we can,” Biggs said. “Our one loss on the road, we didn’t do that as much as we should’ve, and since then everybody has just bought into it and we know we’ve been trying to get it back.”

Biggs did a little bit of everything for the Cougars close to and away from the basket in Columbia’s 95-62 American Midwest Conference win over Hannibal-LaGrange on Thursday night at the Southwell Complex. He led the Cougars (13-1, 5-1) with 21 points, hitting on 9 of 11 field goals, including both 3-point attempts, while grabbing seven rebounds and handing out three assists.

“He’s on balance all the time, and he’s a really good passer and a willing passer,” Burchard said. “And those are two really, really important things, because the guys don’t mind going out there because they know you know they’re going to get it back because he’s going to see him.”

Fresh off NABC Team of the Week Honors and road AMC wins at Freed-Hardemann and Williams Baptist, Burchard’s team put the pedal down early on the Trojans (4-6). Biggs’ first basket of the game stretched Columbia College’s early lead to 10-0. Senior guard Jackson Dubinski completed an acrobatic three-point play and splashed home a triple on consecutive possessions to push the Cougars out in front 16-2.

“Jackson kind of had a crazy little one there had that fired guys up, and once we saw that thing go, everybody was yelling, and, you know, that gets everybody to play a little harder,” Biggs said.

Columbia College’s advantage reached 31-15 at the 8:01 mark of the first half before the Trojans’ offense found some semblance of footing. The Cougars’ five-minute scoreless stretch allowed Hannibal-LaGrange to use a 10-0 run to climb back to within single digits. The Trojans twice brought the game to within six points, the latest instance coming on junior guard Lincoln Elbe’s bucket with 3:29 left in the half.

Burchard attributed the run to a letdown in defensive rotation and intensity that had, up until that point, been what a scouting report of Hannibal-LaGrange by the Columbia College staff said it needed to be.

“I think it was a combination of those two things,” Burchard said. “We stopped defending, and I think some of it had to do with just our combination of guys on the court — not that any were bad, it was just not a good combination for us.”

Biggs responded in kind. He outscored the Trojans 9-2 over the span of less than two minutes to push the Cougars’ lead back to double digits at 40-27. He was responsible for 10 points of Columbia College’s 16-3 sprint to end the half.

“I mean, I felt good and, you know, Jackson had me on a couple of fast breaks that made the play really easy for me,” Biggs said.

The Cougars defense doesn’t look spectacular on the stat sheet, but Biggs and Burchard noted beating Hannibal-LaGrange to spots on key possessions made the difference. The Trojans finished at just 28 percent from the floor.

“Our guys were really locked into to what (assistant) coach (Matt) Woodcock said and we were in really good position the majority of the game, which I think affected their percentages,” Burchard said. “We didn’t give up too many wide-open looks.”